My first outdoor portraits,I need some C&C please. :)

[Alexander Dingley]

I took these the other day and just got a chance to edit them. I used a single flash off to camera left, I was working on shooting at a lower exposure and compensating fill light with the flash. I have never done this before, so any C&C would be great.
I had to use my remote trigger for the flash, and I was shooting with my 135mm, so that 10 second timer seemed really short! LOL That is also why the focus is a little soft, nobody to focus it and I wanted to shoot at f2.8.
I know the posing is very typical and not good, but I really just wanted to work on my outdoor lighting, and editing. So whatever C&C you have will be great! Thanks!!!


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Too me the images are too dark, also the light on you is not the greatest. When your shooting at golden hour (i'm assuming you are) you should have some kind of light for you like a reflector or a flash. I would also go in tighter and try and blow the background out of focus, its not a very interesting background and it also shouldn't be the same light level as you because then you get lost. And this is just nit picking but you don't seem 100x tack sharp but i'm very picky.

 

[FITBMX]

Too me the images are too dark, also the light on you is not the greatest. When your shooting at golden hour (i'm assuming you are) you should have some kind of light for you like a reflector or a flash. I would also go in tighter and try and blow the background out of focus, its not a very interesting background and it also shouldn't be the same light level as you because then you get lost. And this is just nit picking but you don't seem 100x tack sharp but i'm very picky.

I always shoot all of my work on the dark side, it is just what I like the best. Every time I brighten one up a little, I end up not liking it.
I was shooting with a flash for fill light, but I didn't have any kind of reflector, or shoot through with me, so if I turned the flash up any brighter it was too much. And I did get just about the right amount of fill I was looking for.
With the DOF on the background, I was shooting at f2.8 with my 135mm, so outside of blurring it in PS I don't know what else I could have done. Other than a different location.
I know what you mean with the sharpness, I also like most of my work tack sharp. But I was using a 10 second timer, and a 1970's manual focus lens. I would focus on the tree, then pan over to where I would stand and try to line myself up with the focus point on the tree. So I don't think I could have gotten them sharper, but I wish they were.
But these are all just practice photos, and I appreciate the feedback, thanks!